[NYTr] Venez: Unified Socialists Hold First Meeting; Workers Movement Makes Gains

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup - July 31, 2007.

[Meetings of the neighborhood assemblies of Venezuela's new Unified
Socialist Party (PSUV) were held outside Caracas over the weekend.  An
estimated 5.7 million Venezuelans have already registered as members of
the PSUV, which will hold a party-wide assembly in the coming months,
according to Venezuelanalysis.  

Green Left Weekly reports today on the workers' movement in Venezuela,
showing that policies such as workers' councils that allow for greater
control over production and co-management schemes in industry are
behind some of the social gains experienced by ordinary Venezuelans.-VIO]

Venezuelanalysis - July 30, 2007
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2366

Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela Holds First Meetings

By Kiraz Janicke and Gregory Wilpert

Caracas ? This past Saturday a second round of neighborhood meetings
were held to begin the consultation process for the launching of the
soon to be formed Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Meetings
got off to a slow start, but with much enthusiasm.

To find out the location of nearest assembly, those who had registered
for the new party last May, could check the Venezuelan daily Ultimas
Noticias or received a phone call or cell phone text message with the
location. While meetings were scheduled to begin at 2pm, they generally
did not get underway until three.

The neighborhood assemblies of the PSUV are to make up the ?battalions?
of up to 300 members in any given neighborhood, which will meet on a
weekly basis for at least three weeks in a row. During these meetings
participants are to discuss the structure and ideals of the new party.
They then elect spokespersons for the national party congress that is
to be held in August or September.

Orlando Rivas, one of the organizers of the assemblies in the Caracas
barrio of Catia, explained that while 5.7 million Venezuelans, in a
show of support for Chavez, have signed up as aspirants to join the new
party, ?the layer of militants is always much smaller than the mass.
Not all of these people will be members of the new party.?

Soccorro Hernandez, who is the new president of Venezuela?s recently
nationalized telephone company CANTV and who presided over the meeting
for the neighborhood of La Florida, said that some might have joined
because they are hoping membership allows them to acquire or keep a
government job. However, she clarified, this is not the purpose of the
new party.

Gonzalo Gomez, an editor of the website www.aporrea.org and long time
socialist militant, presided over a meeting in the Caracas neighborhood
of Catia and gave a short introduction explaining the process of the
formation of PSUV, the formation of ?battalions,? the elections of
delegates to a founding congress and then encouraged everyone to
participate in the discussion about what is socialism, what is
Bolivarianism and ?how we can transform Venezuela.?

Most assemblies then proceeded to show two videos, the first a short
presentation by Hugo Avila on socialism, democracy, and participation,
the second a longer presentation by Luis Bilbao editor of the magazine
America XXI, about the capitalist economy and the transition to a
socialist economy. Bilbao?s presentation involved an explanation of the
labor theory of value, and the nature of imperialism, why a countries
like Switzerland or England for example, with little natural resources
have a lot of wealth, and why countries like Venezuela, extremely rich
in natural resources have so much poverty.

Assemblies then broke up into smaller groups of around 30 to discuss
the functioning of the battalions, such as the norms governing
discussions and the election of spokespersons and other related ideas.
This was followed with a general discussion on the ideals of socialism,
which ranged from the need to build socialism from a local point of
view, to the broader question of the socialist transformation of
Venezuela.

People spoke about the problems of capitalism in the context of their
daily lives, the price of food, the problems of rubbish, the
environment, and how to strengthen the local health and education
committees and the need to build solidarity with the ?social economy?

Manuel Salceno, a health worker who spoke of building a ?new ethics,
new morals? also said, ?Solidarity is our first reference. We are
individuals, but we see the division of classes that exists in this
country that they try to hide from us.?

?What is the model for this country capitalism or socialism? The people
must decide from below. We need to put forward the proposals that can
transform our country?

?We need to work out the collective form that is necessary for the
struggle, we need one united party, not PPT or Podemos over there, we
need to move forward with the party we a constructing.?

Melba Solis, another promoter, said that this first meeting was an
opportunity for people to talk about socialism ?in their own words,?
therefore many people spoke things that were affecting them in their
local community, the price of rice, the problem of rubbish etc, ?They
are not all Marxist- Leninist? she explained, ?This process of forming
the new PSUV is really about uniting all the militants in the
communities into one party.?

The groups then came back together for a final session to hear report
backs from all the different discussions. People left the meeting
energized, promising to bring more to the next meeting.

President Chavez told viewers during his weekly television program Alo
Presidente that 80% of the battalion assemblies that had been planned
for Caracas and 12 other states on Saturday took place. In Caracas?the
only city where this was a second meeting?an average of 103 persons
attended each of these. In the rest of the country participation
averaged 70 to 80 participants, much as during the first meeting in
Caracas.

?Enough of parties, of little parties, of regional conflicts. We will
all unite, which is a necessity to guarantee that all of [our] projects
continue to proceed,? said Chavez. 

                              ***

Green Left Weekly - July 31, 2007
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=2107

The Struggle for Workers' Power in Venezuela

By Stuart Munckton

The Venezuelan revolution, led by socialist President Hugo Chavez, has
captured the imagination of millions of people around the world with
its increasingly successful challenge to US imperialism and US-backed
neoliberal policies that have caused widespread impoverishment across
Latin America. Since Chavez?s re-election in December on an explicitly
socialist platform, there has been a struggle to significantly ?deepen?
the revolutionary process towards creating a ?socialism of the 21st
century?.

One aspect of the process that has been closely watched internationally
is the role of the workers? movement. Venezuela?s union movement has
been traditionally weak, organising only a small minority of workers.
However, enormous hopes were raised with the formation of the National
Union of Workers (UNT) in 2003, which supported the revolutionary
process. The UNT quickly overtook the right-wing, discredited
Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), which had helped organise
attempts to overthrow the Chavez government.

A movement for workers? co-management in industry also gathered
strength in 2005, with a number of experiments in workers? direct
management over production. However the UNT has since been weakened by
internal fighting, and the movement for co-management has largely
stalled. While Chavez has called for workers to be in the forefront of
the revolution, there is a difficult struggle to find a way to advance
the organisation of workers in order to drive the increasingly radical
economic program of the revolution forward and develop workers? power.

Green Left Weekly spoke to Federico Fuentes, who coordinated a
solidarity brigade of Australian trade unionists to Venezuela in May,
including an official delegation from the Australian Council of Trade
Unions. Participants were able to witness Venezuela?s social
transformation as well as meet with a range of forces from the workers?
movement.

This is the second part of an interview published in GLW #711, in which
Fuentes gave a very positive account of the increasing social gains for
ordinary Venezuelans, the strengthening of popular power through the
grassroots communal councils, and the deepening radicalisation of the
Venezuelan people ? reflected in Chavez?s re-election with the highest
number of votes in Venezuelan history. Fuentes commented on the
significance of and enthusiasm for the United Socialist Party of
Venezuela (PSUV), the new party being formed to unite all the
often-dispersed pro-Chavez forces from the ground up. Since then, 5.7
million people have expressed an interest in joining the PSUV, far
exceeding expectations.

Fuentes explained that he encountered ?a feeling among the people that,
following Chavez?s election victory, now was the time for serious
inroads into the capitalist system, that now was the time the
revolution would significantly deepen. And this has been expressed
especially through the real surge of community organising.?

Divisions in the UNT

However Fuentes also told GLW about some of the difficulties and
contradictions the revolution is grappling with, especially in the
workers? movement. He explained that brigade participants ?had quite a
lot of meetings with different currents within the UNT, who each
expressed their viewpoints on, for instance, the question of holding
internal elections in the UNT [divisions around which led to a cold
split in the UNT at its May congress last year]. It now appears that by
the end of the year there will be some national elections ? the first
such elections inside the UNT, which was formed over four years ago.?
(See article on page 14.)

?Everyone inside the UNT agreed, when we met with them, that it has
never been as dispersed and fractured as it is now?, Fuentes said. ?It
is now made up of five different currents, and there is a sense that
perhaps the UNT will completely split. At the moment it is a de facto
split, where everyone refers to themselves as a particular current of
the UNT. No-one actually speaks on behalf of the UNT as a whole.

?This was drawn out at the May Day demonstration, which was not called
by the UNT, but by a coalition of unions affiliated to the UNT. There
were also no speakers on the platform ? instead there was one person
reading out a statement, which was the only thing the five currents
could agree on. No current trusted any of the others to speak.?

Fuentes added: ?This is aggravated by the fact that the current
minister of labour is also a member of one of the currents, leading to
a sense of exclusion among other larger elements.?

Nonetheless, Fuentes said that there ?are some positive steps forward,
such as in the public sector union where an electoral commission has
been set up involving all five currents to hold elections, which had
been delayed for two years. If this is able to occur it will be a step
forward towards broader elections within the UNT. Another positive step
is the move to unite the four unions in the petroleum sector into one
federation.?

Fuentes placed the UNT?s difficulties in the context of the broader
struggle to create space for new layers of revolutionary militants who
are leading on the ground to develop and take control of the process of
change. The expansion of the communal councils and formation of the
PSUV both aim to facilitate this. Fuentes said: ?I have no doubt that
if elections were held now, many of the current so-called national
leaders of the UNT [from all currents] would not necessarily be
re-elected. On the other hand, there are many union activists who are
playing a positive role in their day-to-day struggles who are yet to
develop as real leaders, and the UNT hasn?t provided a vehicle for that
to occur. Among the rank-and-file, people are fed up with the situation
and something needs to change.?

Fuentes commented on two of the key issues of debate within the union
movement. ?The first is the role of the union in relation to the
government, which partially comes down to how to categorise the
government, and beyond that the state.? Fuentes said that while the
debate is not expressed in such a counterposed way, it is ?essentially
about whether the role of the union movement is solely to support
government policies, or should the union movement also defend workers
against some actions, of, if not so much the government, then the state
bureaucracy.?

Fuentes told GLW that the second issue related to the recent
legislation allowing for the formation of workers? councils in public
and private workplaces across the country, in order to allow workers to
exercise democratic control over production. Fuentes said this has
provoked the question of ?what is the role of unions themselves? Is
there a need to go beyond unions to focus on the workers? councils,
giving unions a secondary role? Should the unions and such councils go
hand in hand in the next stage of this process, or are unions more
important than the workers? councils?? Fuentes said the latter
view ?comes from one of the currents that is very concerned about the
workers? councils, [as it] doesn?t believe they will be real organs of
power, and therefore doesn?t want to give up the existing role of
unions?.

Fuentes explained that the biggest problem is that ?at the moment
things are too polarised and personalised for the discussions to be had
properly. The UNT national leadership cannot even sit down to discuss
these issues.?

Deepening of the revolution

The context for the debates within the workers? movement is the
significant deepening of the struggle to create socialism following
Chavez?s re-election, including the increasing moves against the
capitalist class ? most notably the nationalisation of the section of
the oil industry that remained in private hands, as well as the main
telecommunications company and six electricity companies. Fuentes
commented that ?Chavez has been clear that the companies being
nationalised are those that were previously privatised, and, the
government argues, need to come back into state hands?.

?Recently the developments over [the privatised steel company] Sidor
demonstrate why Chavez is taking this line. Having threatened to
nationalise Sidor, which had worked against Venezuelan interests by
exporting most of its products overseas, leaving the Venezuelan state
to import the same products at higher prices, the government negotiated
a settlement with the Argentinean company that owns the majority of
shares. Under the agreement, Sidor will sell its steel inside Venezuela
at below market prices. So it has put heavy controls on what privately
owned companies do, without taking them directly back into state hands.

?Alongside this process, there are still a number of factories, which
have been left idle or sabotaged by their bosses, being taken over by
the workers. A recent example of this is the textile factory Sanitarios
Maracay, where the workers have not only occupied the factory, but have
opened and run it under workers? control. This is the first example, as
far I know, in the struggle of occupied factories where workers have
re-opened a factory under their control completely outside the law and
in opposition to the factory?s legal owner.? The National Assembly
recently discussed expropriating Sanitarios Maracay.

Workers? participation

Fuentes said that ?there is an important discussion that is becoming
more and more public, which is around the concept [promoted by Chavez]
of creating socialist state enterprises?. This is a discussion on how
state-owned industry should be organised and how it can be integrated
into a new, democratically planned economy run according to people?s
needs. The role of the corrupt state bureaucracy the Chavez government
has inherited from previous regimes has proven that simply having
industry state-owned doesn?t mean it will automatically be run in such
a way, but can instead be a source of corruption run on behalf of the
old elite.

Fuentes said ?The debate is not between public or private property,
with the government repeatedly stating that there is room for both in
the ?new socialism of the 21st century?. What the revolution is
attempting to create is social property ? where it is the people who
truly own the means of production.?

Fuentes explained that ?this is a very intense discussion, because
there is no doubt there are different wings within the government?.
Fuentes said part of the discussion involved the question of workers?
participation in managing state industries. ?There are those who are
totally opposed to any real form of worker participation in state
industry.? Fuentes said that ?it seems, for now at least, this is the
position Chavez has backed?. However, he added that ?this is a
discussion that will unfold and many are confident that it will be
possible to clarify what workers? participation means and why it is so
important in the state industries?.

Fuentes discussed the initial formation of workers? councils,
explaining that ?there are a few workers? councils already set up,
outside the framework of any law, often in factories that have already
been occupied and then nationalised such as Inveval.

?But it is unclear exactly what scope these councils will have, and
what their intersection with the communal councils will be. Some in the
union movement were a bit concerned about some statements made by the
labour minister that seemed to imply that the councils would
essentially be given a supervisory role, rather than be real
decision-making bodies in the workplace. But I don?t think the question
has been resolved yet.?

Fuentes argued that a major obstacle to the plan for workers? councils
is that the workers? movement, which is needed to lead the organisation
of workers into councils, is still very weak. ?This is an example where
the law precedes the struggle, where legislation is in advance of what
the actual level of organisation and consciousness of the working class
is able to actually achieve on the ground.? Fuentes argued that ?this
is not necessarily a bad thing, as it can act to stimulate struggle?.

GLW asked Fuentes about the state of the movement for workers?
co-management, whereby workers would jointly manage a company with the
state, or in some instances a private employer. Fuentes said: ?It is
pretty fair to say that at a public, official level, and within the
UNT, the discourse about co-management has disappeared.? One reason for
this, suggested Fuentes, was that ?the tendency [within the revolution]
that is opposed to workers? participation in ?strategic sectors? of
state industry ? that is opposed not simply to one or another form of
it, but full stop ? appears to have been able to get the ear of Chavez?.

Fuentes said another reason is the result of bitter experiences in the
struggle for co-management, such as in the electricity industry. It
wasn?t that electricity workers no longer wanted co-management, but
that they no longer raise it ?because of the huge fight they had
against the management of [state-run company] Cadafe. The management of
Cadafe went out of its way to sabotage and defeat moves to introduce
co-management. If you go to most workers in the electrical sector and
even mention the word co-management, it sends a shiver down their
spines.? Fuentes said the workers still raise the concept of workers?
participation, but no longer talk of co-management specifically.

Fuentes told GLW that some examples of co-management still exist, most
notably at Alcasa, where it ?continues to face many problems?. Fuentes
explained that because Alcasa has been made a case study for whether
co-management could work, ?there are a lot of vested interests in
ensuring it doesn?t succeed?.

?People point to the fact that the production levels at Alcasa are not
as good as other similar plants, that it is a very dangerous and
polluting plant. This is all true, but this existed before the
introduction of co-management. This is why Alcasa was chosen to be the
case study, the logic being if it could work at a plant with so many
problems, then it would work anywhere.?

Fuentes also pointed out that co-management still existed in one small
sector of the electricity industry, at Cadafe Sector 7 in the state of
Miranda, which has recently been integrated into Cadafe nationally.
However, he said the workers are very concerned that, in the process of
integrating into the national company, they will lose their experiment.

However, whatever problems facing the workers? movement today, it
remains clear that major gains have already been made. One of the aims
of the brigade of Australian unionists to Venezuela in May was to
gather more information for a debate within the International Labour
Organisation about whether it should continue recognising the
discredited CTV, or the UNT. Fuentes said that whatever problems the
UNT is struggling to overcome, it was clear that the CTV no longer has
any real weight among Venezulean workers.

?The CTV is no longer really a union federation at all, but is more a
political group in opposition to the government. The CTV-organised May
Day demonstration had 1000 people at it, and that is the number given
by the pro-opposition private media, so maybe it was even smaller in
reality. Whereas the May Day march called by unions affiliated to the
UNT was at least half-a-million strong, according to the organisers,
and probably closer to 1.5 million.

?An indication of just how weak the CTV is, is that its current
president is also a member of a construction union that happened to
provide the largest delegation to the UNT-organised May Day rally. The
CTV?s own president has no support within his own union!?